Is any game worth 1,000 USD? The single-most expensive standalone Sega Saturn game and one of my Sega Saturn ‘grail’ games.

Spanning 4 discs that bring a unique game world that involves a rider and their dragon taking the fight to an empire that was only peripherally hinted at in the first 2 games, one with its own lore, landscape and language to life - the game clocks in at a relatively modest 25-30 hours (despite the 4-discs) to really flesh out the world-building with cinematics and voiced speech - in the game’s fantasy language.

The semi real-time battle system is my favorite aspect of the game, which smartly adapts and turns the radial camera system from the main Panzer Dragoon series on its head, into one that focuses on positioning your character to avoid enemy hit zones while waiting for your turn to act, reminiscent of Final Fantasy’s ATB system.

Originally conceived as a Final Fantasy killer for the Sega Saturn (that was a term that was thrown around a lot in the 32-bit era), the game faced multiple delays in development and by the time it made it out in the West, the Sega Saturn was on its last legs and thus only 20,000+ copies were printed - as a result driving the current prices for the game beyond 1,000 USD.

Perhaps no game is worth 1,000 dollars, but for 32-bit era JRPG fans, Panzer Dragoon Saga still stands as an interesting testament of that era with a setting and battle system still unique - even by modern RPG standards.

I find that some of the games I enjoy the most are those that I know very little of, by the time I check them out. Panzer Dragoon Saga is one of them. All I had seen of it, which was enough to spark my interest, was this bit of cutscene, devoid of context. There's something already pretty unique, in there. Most games back then- hell, a lot of JRPGs today, don't have that kind of animation. In just about every scene (and these aren't the "big" ones- those are FMVs) characters act and interact with each other, move around, they don't just stand there and stare at each other while they talk. Today this isn't groundbreaking, but I genuinely cannot think of a single game in Saga's era that did anything like this. Only Vagrant Story, maybe, and that one's a few years newer. It's fully voice acted, too, down to every single unimportant NPC line (Only in Japanese, though. This is probably better nowadays, but it does feel like they just didn't care to dub it, it would certainly have turned people off at the time. Given how few copies were even sold overseas, this isn't surprising. It's nice that the translation itself is pretty alright, though, minus some oddities). This is all already very admirable in a vacuum, but I think that when Panzer Dragoon Saga is looked at as a sequel to its rail shooter predecessors, it all makes even more sense. In my thoughts on the original Panzer Dragoon, I noted that the game felt extremely cinematic in a grandiose way, and Saga is a natural evolution of that. It's impressive just how much it achieves in terms of presentation, and while the story is simpler than the genre's usual fare, that very much does not harm it, in the long run.

Speaking of adapting Panzer Dragoon to the RPG canon, the gameplay is an even clearer and more brilliant example of that, which is no small feat. How do you even adapt a rail shooter into turn-based combat? Simple, you put all of the focus on the positioning of the player and enemies in regards to one another, and turn every fight into a super cinematic little puzzle. It's not the deepest thing out there, though more than satisfying enough: You can move around the foes, ducking in and out of danger and safe zones, positioning yourself so you can hit weak points, but the ability to act recharges in real time, and moving halts it briefly, so you have to be tactical. This is all capped off quite cleverly by a simple ratings system at the end of every fight. Beat it quickly and without taking many hits, and you'll be awarded with more exp and a chance for an item. The game is quite easy, and you'll never really need to play strategically, so it's nice to always have something to push you towards optimal play. Outside of battle, levels are explored entirely on dragonback, flying through caves, ruins, forests and the like, which is a nice spectacle and quite cooler than the usual on-foot dungeon crawling, though ultimately not too mechanically different. Again, Team Andromeda's penchant for the cinematic shines- style over substance is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when there's more than enough of the latter. Speaking of that, you can transform your dragon, and the way it freely warps between any combination of its forms is quite the technological marvel.

When you will be walking on foot, it will be because you're exploring the game's few towns and such. They're small, but populated with fairly memorable NPCs. I think all of them have unique models, and plenty have side-quests associated with them, sometimes small, sometimes not. Good stuff. I don't think you'll be missing out by going in fully blind, but I actually did enjoy checking the wiki's list of "secrets" and poking around at various side stories as I went through the game. As for the main story, I've mentioned already that it's fairly simple, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just more understated than expected. Mercenary Edge's group gets slaughtered by rebel Craymen, who is following some mysterious goals, and he sets out to get his revenge on him, with the help of a dragon that mysteriously bonded with him. Character development is very organic, sometimes subtle and usually not lampshaded, and PDS doesn't mind hitting you with some nasty gut punches, or hiding some pretty vital information from you entirely. It can feel slightly underwhelming at times, but it does fit the setting and tone, and I do appreciate the commitment to the original games' surreal aura.

I do have some genuine criticisms, though. While the game is mostly pretty fun, a few of the dungeons are pretty unbearable. The worst offender is the Ruins of Uru, a massive labyrinth you can only explore with a shitty little landspeeder, populated with pathetically weak encounters that offer no challenge and a lot of wasted time. I actually quite like what it does story-wise but man is it a slog to go through. Generally, the last disc of the game tends to have some of its worst dungeons, with reskinned enemies and lots of flying about with little to do. The final dungeon is a stealth one, and it completely fails as a climactic conclusion of the story and gameplay. Your offensive "berserk" powers, aka your spells, look cool but feel kind of useless a lot of the time, because they require twice as many actions as your attacks and rarely do even just twice as much damage, at least in the late game. They're useful to break past defenses but usually there's some way around them that lets you strike a weak point for great damage, which you can only do with your standard attacks.

It's a damn shame that this game was relegated to the last throes of a console doomed to fail from day one. It is absolutely one of the finest JRPGs I've played and just bursts at the seams with love for its world and for pushing the envelope on what games could be. I absolutely recommend playing it, it's quite tighter and lighter in length than your usual JRPG, has some really awesome things I haven't even mentioned, like the OST, and while Saturn emulation isn't great it is worth dealing with. Do keep in mind that it is highly recommended to be familiar with Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei before playing this- knowing the original PD is nice, knowing Zwei is quite important. So, with that, I guess that's it for Panzer Dragoon and me. I want to play Orta, but I don't know if I want to enough to figure out Xbox emulation, and I'm sure as hell not playing the Game Gear one. All I've said about this game applies to the whole series, these are some really evocative, artful games that did some extremely interesting stuff with the medium, and it's really a shame that they were stuck on a console nobody bought, because if they were on the PS1 or N64 I guarantee to you that Panzer Dragoon would be a household name today.

In modern times hearing that a Japanese game is getting a western release is pretty standard news. With this information is generally the assumption that in most cases that will mean it will get a release in North America and most countries in Europe at a bare minimum but that wasn't always the case. Back in the 90's and early 2000's if a game got a western release announcement you had to actually look what that meant. Being from Europe we missed a lot of games that were released only in North America back then. Titles like Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Chrono trigger / Cross, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenosaga 1 & 3 (2 came out here in an odd twist) among a huge slew of others.

One of these titles was Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean for the Sega Saturn. It's the third game in the series, first to get a release outside of Japan and even then to North America only. (The original SNES Albert Odyssey does have an English patch to those interested, though it's sequel is still only in Japanese at this time). Legend of Eldean was localised into English by a company called Working Designs. They did a whole host of localisations for obscure JRPGs back then that would never have seen the light of day here without them. On the flipside however they are infamous for butchering dialogue and localising the games so that 'American audiences could understand them' which is both patronising and damaging to the integrity of the games.

The dialogue in Albert Odyssey is dreadful, there is just no other way to phrase it. At times it has pop culture references that aged terribly, mentions Sweden, Burritos as well as some extremely edgy sexism and phrasing that add nothing to the game. I have no idea how much of it was them taking liberties, and how much of it was just bad from the original game but either way I do wish there was an 'un-working' design patch to correct some of these issues when they appear. It isn't constant but it's jarring enough when it happens to be both hugely out of place and irritating when it does. The over arcing story of Albert Odyssey equally suffers though through no fault of Working Designs but the original vision. It feels like two different games merged together that don't have much in common leaving the plot feeling poorly paced.

The thing is though, this isn't a bad game, I actually enjoyed my time with it despite my issues above. Visually it's gorgeous using lovely pixel art as it started as a SNES game and the Saturn was always a 2D powerhouse. I love the artwork and character portraits. Sounding like an old man here but 80's and 90's anime designs were at their height back then. The game is extremely vibrant and colourful and has a neat little soundtrack to match it. The combat is a simple affair taking a departure from the first two games which were SRPGs to a basic turn based system with, attack, defend, magic and item. Nothing special here but kind of quaint in an old school way as someone who grew up with this as fairly standard.

It's got it's charm and it's easy and fun to play through. I appreciate it when you get non human cast members in games and Albert Odyssey leans into that. The last dungeon is a bit of a headache and the writing and pacing are questionable but overall it is an enjoyable little game that is worth the time to play.

+ Gorgeous art and colour.
+ Nice music.
+ Has a lot of charm and an almost nostalgic feeling to it.

- Localisation liberties at times make the writing insufferable.
- The over arching story is a little all over the place.

If you like arcade the original arcade game, and you enjoy intense, repetitive arcade games in general, this is a great game. If not, you probably won't like it much. I wish it had battery save instead of password save for the story mode, and I also wish the story mode had slightly more meat to it, but it's still very fun. Many have spoken highly about how good this music is, but the music just hits different when actually playing the game too. It's almost intoxicating, and gets you craving for that pixel blood-lust this game totally delivers on. Would recommend for arcade fanatics!

This game has incredibly rewarding design. It has limited lives and continues but they feel purposeful in that the game is pushing you to get better with each playthrough. I streamed this game for my channel (link below). In my first playthrough I made it to the final level and lost all of my continues. In my second, I was able to get to the final boss with all my continues, but lost all of my continues trying to fight him. It was a crushing defeat that felt bad to me. After a while though, I wanted to try again. I streamed it again a couple days later and I was able to beat it with all of my continues in tact.

The reason I was able to go back to this again and again is because of how well designed every sequence of this is. The controls are a little weird to learn at first, but are incredibly fun once you master them. It's one of the best controlling 2D action platformers I've played yet. This is also carried by its carefully designed and varied levels. Every challenge feels fair and the games rising difficulty is expertly tuned. It also just has awesome level themes and the music really enhances the experience. The boss fights are incredibly sick, the final boss is a huge highlight, it was the perfect way to end the game. My only issue with this game is that it could have used proper support for the six button controller. I didn't know you could block by holding the attack button for the longest time. Also having Kunai and the sword mapped to the same button is incredibly silly. But these are things I was able to learn and adapt to.

I don't have any major problems with this one honestly. It just got better and more refined the more I played it. Conquering it felt like a great accomplishment. I consider it a definitive action platformer that I think everyone should play.

https://youtu.be/IL2gYrQBLbY?si=lIB6H2nFowgZOhDU

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a stellar 2D metroidvania. It harkens back to older games in the Monster Boy series with demanding gameplay and old-school design principles while also implementing a modern, beautiful presentation. With every new area I traversed through, I kept being awed by the expressive hand drawn background art and character animation. The fast-paced action, expressive art style, and varied soundtrack all aid the pacing and made this game difficult to put down until it was over.

All of the gameplay hallmarks of an excellent metroidvania are here. There's a complex and varied world to explore, upgradeable animal forms that expand traversal options, pattern-based boss battles, and plenty of equipment to sift through. These systems are all implemented well, but as a big fan of platforming games, my favorite aspect of Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom was the emphasis placed on platforming-based challenges and puzzles. Navigating many of the game's spaces requires switching between animal forms to take advantage of each form's unique movesets. This emphasis makes the act of navigating Monster Boy's world a puzzle in itself.

For a game that emphasizes switching between different animal forms on a regular basis, I feel that this mechanic could have been implemented more smoothly. Selecting a new character with the default radial wheel option necessitates a pause in the action which takes away from the game's rhythm. There is another option to switch between forms one at time using buttons on the controller, but I found this to be a bit cumbersome as well. I've seen this type of control be effective in certain games, but it doesn't quite land for me here due to how critical the fast-paced gameplay was to my enjoyment of the experience.

Favorite Tracks:

Green Fields: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-HloEoBPDI&list=PLA2FBJVTopFZ24Co2_HyAmLnE-nNOFN_n&index=3

The Sewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG7V5FIdHAI&list=PLA2FBJVTopFZ24Co2_HyAmLnE-nNOFN_n&index=40

Crystal Caves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRoTHTat-V4&list=PLA2FBJVTopFZ24Co2_HyAmLnE-nNOFN_n&index=2

Castle of Lupia Phase 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FraSbAukV-k&list=PLA2FBJVTopFZ24Co2_HyAmLnE-nNOFN_n&index=4